


(It Could Be) Worse

by startwithsparks



Series: MMOM 2014 [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Public Nudity, Shame, Suit Kink, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:52:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2125896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startwithsparks/pseuds/startwithsparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During decontamination at an incident site, Skye sees something she can't unsee. And it's not in a bad way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(It Could Be) Worse

"The good news," Fitz started, trying to sound chipper through the window of his hazmat suit, "is that all levels appear to be perfectly normal."

"It's likely you weren't exposed to any more radiation than you might have been just by standing next to a microwave," Simmons added, her own tone slightly more apologetic, which Skye thought was appropriate considering she and Fitz were the only two members of the team not currently standing in line for decontamination. "But you understand," she continued, her brows knitting together the way they did when she was trying to be gentle about bad news, "it's probably better to be safe than sorry."

"Especially considering we're going to be confined to an air-locked metal tube fifty thousand feet in the air..." Fitz finished for her.

"Yes, thank you, Fitz," Simmons sighed. "You'll be fine," she smiled, "it's just-"

"Procedure?" Skye finished, a frown firmly in place.

Their reassurances did little to help Skye's apprehension. It was easy for them to be optimistic, considering they didn't have to face the invasive process of stripping down in front of a half dozen SHIELD agents and what looked like most of the local population. May and Ward, who had been closest to the reaction when it happened, were still being scrubbed down while Coulson stood off to the side talking with an agent in a bright orange suit, his arms folded neatly and a line of frustration creased across his forehead. She'd read the handbooks - all of them - and she knew perfectly well what the procedure in these kinds of situations was.

"It could be worse," Simmons offered. "We're fortunate that the local authorities have relatively new equipment."

"Yeah," Skye tried, and failed, to sound enthusiastic. "At least there's that."

Simmons offered another faintly reassuring smile, then nodded towards the mobile decontamination tent behind Skye. One agent was trying to pry Coulson away from his conversation while the other one was coming straight for her.

"Would you believe me if I told you that I dropped out of school to avoid situations like this?" Skye said, rubbing uncomfortably at the back of her neck.

"Radiation exposure?" Fitz asked.

Skye made a face, "Communal showering."

She could almost see the awkward expression bloom across his face as he fumbled out an equally graceful " _Oh_ ". Simmons pulled him away with a faint murmur about giving Skye some privacy and for that much she was grateful. She'd like to minimize the number of teammates who had to see her naked, if at all possible. She followed the other agent silently, watching as Coulson reluctantly stripped off his jacket, tie, and stepped out of his shoes before stepping into what looked like the forgotten lovechild of a shower and a bouncy castle.

"It's a shame, I really liked this suit..." she heard him say as she reached down to tug off her boots.

Skye's gaze flicked up towards the agent in front of her, "Wait, are we going to get our clothes back?"

"They'll have to be sealed and tested," the agent replied, holding out a large plastic bag. "But you'll get them back."

That was a small consolation considering all the clothes she owned fit in one duffle bag, but it didn't seem like she had much choice. She dropped her boots and socks into the bag, then her jacket along with them, before shuffling into the tent. On the other side of the thin, translucent curtain she could hear Coulson systematically undressing as well, the sound of fabric dropping into a plastic bag and bare feet shuffling along the still-damp plastic floor. Reluctantly she shed the rest of her clothes as quickly as she could, trying to maintain some grace and dignity in the process. Once she'd finished, the agent stepped out of the tent and closed the flap on the end, leaving Skye alone in what could most easily be described as a plastic tube. At the other end, she could see May in SHIELD-issued sweatpants and a teeshirt, still toweling off her hair.

The shower switching on above her caught her by surprise and she had to duck out of the way to keep herself from getting hit directly in the face with the spray. She'd felt less-abrasive water pressure in hotels, but she wasn't about to complain when she'd rather get the whole thing done and over with as quickly as possible. She reached for the soap bottle sitting on the floor and squeezed it out in her hand, remembering what Simmons had told her and going for her hair first. There was something about radiation getting absorbed into the hair faster than it did through skin and that was all the more advice she needed to scrub hard at her scalp and seriously consider going at each strand individually to make sure that whatever might have stuck to her got _out_.

It wasn't until she'd wiped the soap out of her eyes and reached for the bottle again that she even considered the fact that she wasn't _quite_ alone. Even then it was only because, as she fumbled for the bottle where she'd accidentally kicked it over on the floor, she caught a glimpse of Coulson's bare feet on the other side of the curtain. It was sort of like seeing your dad naked and at the same time not like that _at all_. Skye turned around only to get hit in the face with the abrasive blast of water again and flailed. The whole thing was enough to put her off-balance on its own, but then the thought wormed its way into her head that if she could see Coulson, then he could probably see her too.

She muttered a faint " _shit_ " under her breath, and tried to focus her gaze on anything other than the vague outline of her boss in the shower next to her. Concentrating instead on scrubbing herself as clean as she could, until her skin was red and tingled numbly from the spray of the water and the harsh soap. She started towards the other end of the tent and the water behind her switched off with an indignant sputter, leaving her with the static of Coulson's shower still running and the jumbled noises of everyone else still milling around outside.

Skye took the towels offered to her and wrapped one around her body before twisting her hair up in the other. Thankfully Ward was long gone, but May still lingered at the outer edge of the tent, holding a stack of clothes in her arms. Without saying a word, she turned her back towards Skye and blocked the opening of the tent from view, then handed Skye a teeshirt over her shoulder. It was a small comfort, but it was enough. With the white noise of the other shower suddenly absent, Skye hurried up and tugged the shirt on over her head, trying not to stumble into May as she stepped into the too-big sweatpants offered to her next. If nothing else, at least she could hide in her clothes until they got back to the bus and she was able to put this whole scene behind her. No sooner did the thought enter her mind than it was replaced abruptly by another, considerably more uncomfortable thought.

May might have been a great barrier between her and the people who might see _in_ , but that didn't mean that she was enough of a barrier to keep Skye from seeing _out_. It was one of those awkward situations where she hadn't meant to look, but once she saw it she couldn't look away. Even with it in her periphery, her attention was still drawn, against her better intentions, towards the gap between May's arm and the wall of the decontamination tent. It was just enough space for her to see Coulson step out with a towel slung around his waist and fat drops of water still trickling down the back of his neck from his hair. She wasn't sure what was more shocking, seeing Coulson stripped of his impeccably tailored business armor or the fact that he was ridiculously fit for a man his age.

While she was gawking, May had turned around and now stood in front of her with her arms crossed and a faint smirk hiding at the corner of her lips. She cleared her throat, loud enough that it caused Coulson to glance over, and Skye turned a shade of red only found in boxes of crayons.

"I was just-" she started.

May shook her head, "You don't have to explain anything to me," she said, then nodded towards a pair of standard issue white gym shoes on the ground by her feet, complete with white socks stuffed down inside the left shoe.

Skye fidgeted, tugging the towel from her hair and handing it to May, who stuffed it into a bag with her other towel and handed it off to a lingering agent, then leaned down to retrieve the shoes. For a moment, at least, she was grateful for the damp veil her hair made, blocking her face from anyone who might - though hopefully not - be looking at her in that freak moment of total embarrassment. She didn't even bother brushing it away from her face as she edged past May and plodded, barefoot, across the yard towards the van.

Fitz and Simmons had shed their alien hazmat suits and were wedged in next to each other in the van's open side door, while Ward leaned against the door itself, his jaw set in that impenetrable expression that he always wore. Simmons smiled brightly as Skye approached, handing her tablet to Fitz as she stood.

"You've lived through your first decontamination!" she said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It could have been worse," Skye offered with a lopsided grin.

Simmons smiled back and reached out to rest her hand on Skye's upper arm, guiding her safely past Fitz and into the van. She slouched back into the seat and dropped the shoes on the floor, before reaching back for her bag and her laptop. It was always a surefire distraction, and one she needed even more now that Coulson was making his way towards them. Outside the van, May nodded for the rest of the team to pile inside as well, taking her place in the driver's seat. Skye had never wanted to get back to the Bus more than she did now, and not just so she could get into her own clothes.

The ride back was far from silent - another welcome distraction. Fitz and Simmons talked at length about the readings they'd gathered and what little information they'd been able to coerce out of other agents about the nature of the device that had caused such a mess in the first place. Since they weren't the only SHIELD team to respond, Coulson had elected to let the others take care of disposing of it, despite Fitz's noticeable enthusiasm over studying it further. It was probably safer to drive it to a secure facility than it would be to use the plane, he argued, and Fitz gave only a token complaint about being deprived of an opportunity for further research. They were all tired and it was easier to fall back on idle chatter, which meant Skye could focus her attention on Fitz and Simmons and _not_ on Coulson sitting across from May in the front.

She had been around Coulson just as much as most of the team, so it made her feel even more awkward to realize that she was the only one who seemed to even notice him looking so _casual_. Whether or not it was her brain trying to rationalize things, Skye had come to the hopeful conclusion that the bulk of her initial shock was just seeing Coulson outside his typical two-piece suit and tie. It was a jarring realization that he was, after all, human. That probably said a lot more about her than it did about him, but she had grown to have this not entirely favorable opinion towards the symbol of authority that came with men in suits. Since joining the team, she'd had to reevaluate where she stood on a lot of issues, the least of which was authority figures. It was all just a little too much information for her brain to process at once, especially when she was still trying to parse through huge chunks of new data; some of which she wasn't entirely sure she even wanted to deal with right now. Or _ever_.

As soon as they were back on the Bus, the team scattered to their usual stations, and though Ward was giving her the look that said this was a good time to get some training in, Skye ignored him and made her way upstairs to her bunk, sliding the door shut behind her and basking for a moment in the privacy. She slumped down on her bed with a groan, dragging her hands over her face as she felt the plane jolt forward as it started to take off. Skye rolled onto her back, watching the scenery slowly drag past her window, then disappear below them, giving way to the late-afternoon sky. It was almost serene, and Skye quickly became aware that serene was the last thing she needed. The quiet and then solitude, the gentle hum of the plane around her, only enabled her thoughts to spin faster, and if she closed her eyes for a moment the picture on the back of her eyelids just flipped back to the same thing.

It was ridiculous and she felt ridiculous for it, but Skye rolled onto her side away from the wall and tucked her arm under her pillow, her knees pressed tight together and hitched upwards. Someone a lot more put-together than she was once said that the only way to get rid of something was to give into it, and as much as she worried that indulging this would only throw fuel on the fire, the alternative was a lot more frustrating. With her body turned away from the door, she could at least pretend to be sleeping instead of sliding her hand past the waistband of her sweatpants and between her thighs, trying to keep her body as still as possible and her breathing slow and heavy. She'd grown up surrounded by people, so this was nothing new for her - getting one off quick, in such a way that anyone who might wander past her would think nothing of it. And as long as she kept her eyes squeezed shut, she at least had something to focus her attention on.

Maybe by the time she finished everyone else would be dressed in their normal clothes and carrying on with their normal business and she could pretend she hadn't seen what was now undoubtedly fixed permanently on some part of her brain. She could have a drink with Fitz and Simmons or go down and pretend like she wanted to learn how to disarm Ward, and continue pretending that this didn't happen - wasn't happening - and would most definitely not happen again, because the embarrassment of knowing that she'd gotten off to her boss was not something she wanted to experience more than once. Except for the lurch of excitement in her gut when she thought about it, and the blush that crept across her skin as well, which was just as good as thinking about the way water rolled over his skin or the messy array of gray-and-brown hair across his chest or even - _especially_ \- the way his suits gave no indication at all of just what they hid, which made the prospect of removing them all the more intriguing.

She was going to purge all those thoughts from her mind as soon as she was finished in here. Unless she decided instead to keep them and hide them away somewhere only she would ever get to them - better than any encryption - and count herself lucky that no one else seemed to notice or even care that she'd added on more little, completely insignificant, secret to the vault. It could be worse.


End file.
